Mass spectrometry is a well known analytical tool for identification and quantitative analysis of elements, compounds and so forth. The key qualities of a mass spectrometer are its resolving power, mass accuracy and sensitivity. One specific form of mass spectrometry, time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF-MS) involves accelerating ions in an electric field and then drifting them to a detector at a known distance. Ions of different mass to charge ratios (m/z) but having the same kinetic energy move at different velocities towards the detector and so separate according to their m/z.
The resolving power of TOF-MS is typically related to the flight length: the longer the distance between the location of ion packet formation and the detector, the greater the resolving power. To an extent, therefore, the resolution of a TOF-MS can be improved by maximizing the linear distance between the electric field and the detector. However, beyond a certain linear separation, practical problems arise as the instrument size increases, leading to increased cost, additional pumping requirements, and so forth.
To address this, so called multireflection time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MR TOF-MS) has been developed In a simplest embodiment of MR TOF-MS, two coaxial mirrors are provided (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,226,543, U.S. Pat. No. 6,013,913, U.S. Pat. No. 6,107,625 or WO-A-2002/103747). The problem with such an arrangement is that it severely limits the mass range that can be analyzed. This is because, as the ions of different m/z separate, the initial single pulse of ions becomes a train of pulses whose duration depends on the flight length they have travelled and the range of m/z ions within the train. On increasing separation this train of pulses separates to such an extent that ions at the front of the train reach around to the back of the train, and ion mixing begins which complicates m/z analysis of those ions. Consequently in such coaxial multireflection analysers, either the flight path length or the range of m/z must be limited for meaningful analysis to be possible or, alternatively, the overlapping information has to be deconvoluted by processing means. To achieve high resolving power, a long flight path length is required, and consequently the mass range of ions in the analyser mush be restricted.
Multireflection ion mirrors for TOF-MS that addressed this limited mass range are described in GB-A-2,080,021 to Wollnik. Here, each mirror provides a single reflection and is functionally independent of the other mirrors. Although the arrangement of Wollnik addresses the limited mass range of other prior art devices, it does not offer a practical solution which could implement the large number of ion mirrors in the case where a large ion incidence angle provides higher resolution.
SU-A-1,725,289 describes a TOF-MS with two opposed planar ion mirrors that allows for repeated reflections in a direction generally transverse to a drift direction (Y). Unlimited beam divergence in that drift (Y) direction limits the usefulness of this design with modern ion sources (electrospray, MALDI etc).
The problem of defocussing in a drift direction is addressed by Verentchikov et al in WO-A-2005/001878. Here, as in other prior art, the reflectors are extended in the shift direction. Because of the limited focussing in this plane, multiple planar lenses are inserted orthogonally to the drift direction (Y) so as repeatedly to refocus the ion beam as it spreads in that Y direction. Nonetheless, the amount of refocussing in that drift direction remains relatively weak (compared to the focusing in the other directions). Moreover, the presence of the planar lenses in the middle of the mirror assembly complicates the practical realization of the device, since, for example, it is then difficult to locate an ion detector and an ion source in the same plane (which is normally coincident with the plane of time of flight focussing of the mirrors). This in turn necessitates an additional isochronous ion transfer as shown in, for example, US-A-2006/0214100. It is also costly due to the inclusion of multiple additional components.